20 Worst Movies Of 2016 (So Far)

In a weird quirk of fate, Criminal - an appropriately named waste of time and talent - was one of a pair of films about transferring brains (sort of) into other people starring Ryan Reynolds released within the last year. Even more coincidentally, both were terrible, but Criminal makes Self/less tolerable in comparison.

The film purports to be a high-concept sci-fi, mixing elements of Face-Off with All Of Me and lots of psuedo-science, but it is undone horribly by some fundamental stupidity. For instance, Kevin Costner's criminal (whose only real allusion to being a really bad dude is his skin fade haircut that makes him look ridiculous) is chosen because he suffered major brain trauma that made him a better criminal. Why would that ever make you a good test subject? It's like they wanted to fail.

And therein lies the allegory for the entire, exhausting project: it pretends to be supremely smart and innovative, but it's just silly and retreads a lot of better genre movies. Great cast though, which is sort of the problem too.